Pregnant Rocky home invader finds first role model in prison

5am Thursday: THE first time a heavily pregnant home invader found a role model was in prison.

Growing up in a dysfunctional environment, going "from pillar to post" through foster homes, Kiana Catherine Jade Burke had no guidance or role models.

Rockhampton District Court heard the 22-year-old mother of three's childhood circumstances after she pleaded guilty to her role in the home invasion of an elderly and sick West Rockhampton man in April last year.

Defence barrister Tom Polley painted a picture of one of the worst childhoods imagined, involving serious child abuse, abandoned by a father who'd moved on to a new younger family, shuffled between homes of family members and others, and ending up binging on alcohol and marijuana.

The court heard she had seven prior convictions, including assault occasioning bodily harm for attacking a woman without warning in a Centrelink office in Cloncurry.

Burke was heavily pregnant when she and two juveniles, who she'd been drinking a bottle of vodka with, burgled an 86-year-old man's West Rockhampton home at knifepoint in the middle of the night on April 14, 2017.

Burke was on parole for the Cloncurry assault at the time and had been abusing alcohol and marijuana.

Crown prosecutor Alexandra Baker said the Rockhampton victim had gone to bed about midnight and woke to three people with towels covering their faces in his bedroom, one armed with a knife picked up in the kitchen.

The armed offender, a 14-year-old boy, cut the phone lines and medical alert bracelet on the victim's wrist.

The victim's mobile phones were thrown into the toilet so he couldn't call for help.